How can you tell if a California King Snake is a male or female?

Once the embryos start to form inside the female, she will be come irritable - perhaps even vicious (speaking from experience) if you try to handle her. You will notice, as the eggs start to form, that she develops slight swellings in the lower third of her body - just above her cloaca.

She may also go off her food - or take more food than usual. Once the eggs are formed - she will seek out a suitable place to lay her clutch - a place in the vivarium that is the exact temperature she needs for the eggs to develop and hatch. (Snakester1962 - Supervisor)